u/Here_wego_again6211

So a friend of mine just got into Digimon through Time Stranger, really got hooked on it. I told him he had to check out Beat Break next. He tried, but couldn't get through it, said it felt too childish compared to what he'd just played.

That kind of stuck with me. People clearly love the designs, the digivolutions, the whole aesthetic, that's never been the problem. But when it comes to actually pulling new adult fans in and keeping them, the tone keeps falling back into kids' show territory. I really wish Bandai would commit to something genuinely Seinen. Not just darker, but written for adults, slower, heavier, more grounded. I think it would bring a lot more people into the franchise who are already halfway in because of stuff like Time Stranger.

I'm building a fanmade 3D fighting game based on Digimon, styled more like Tekken or Street Fighter than a platform fighter. The first character I'm working on is Hagurumon and its evolution line, and I wanted to get some outside perspective on movesets before I lock anything in.

For anyone not familiar with these guys: Hagurumon is a small, round gear-headed robot, kind of clumsy and slow looking. It evolves into Guardromon, a bulkier armored robot built like a tank with big claws. That evolves into Andromon, a sleeker, more humanoid cyborg with more precise, martial-arts-like proportions. And the final form, Hiandromon, is a much bigger, heavily armored mech-type with a more imposing, weapon-covered design.

Right now I have some basics down for Hagurumon, like a single gear hit, a stronger two-gear hit, and a spinning head-gear jump attack, and I'm trying to pull from the actual attack names in the source material (things like Darkness Gear, Command Input, Makikomi, Haguru Attack, Crash Device, Kikai Attack) and turn them into moves that actually feel good in a fighting game rather than just reskinned generic attacks.

What I'm really looking for is help thinking through specials, supers, and combo routes. How would you turn a slow, clunky-looking robot line like this into something with an interesting kit? Should the earlier forms lean more into grabs and armor-heavy moves since they're bulkier, and the later forms open up into faster strings and projectiles as they get sleeker? Any thoughts on what would make each stage feel meaningfully different to play, not just a stat bump, would be huge.